The Boeing 767 and the Birth of ETOPS

Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 121.161 states "Unless authorized by the administrator, based on the character of the terrain, the kind of operation, or the performance of the airplane to be used, no certificate holder may operate two-engine airplanes over a route that contains a point farther than 1 hour flying time (in still air at normal cruising speed with one engine inoperative) from an adequate airport." The rule was written in the days of the propliner when piston engines didn't have the reliability of modern jet turbines. When the Boeing 767-200ER entered service, it was the first commercial twin-jet capable of crossing the oceans*- when Boeing's director of engineering, Dick Taylor, first approached FAA administrator Lyn Helms in 1980, Helms responded "It'll be a cold day in hell before I let twins fly long haul, overwater routes." Helms even felt that the 60-minute rule was too generous. Despite his opposition, though, in 1982, the FAA began technical discussions with aircraft manufacturers, airlines and ICAO (they had formed a study group of their own in 1982) on the possibility of extended twin-engine overwater flights. At an ICAO meeting in Montreal that December, the FAA asked airline operators of twin jet aircraft to compile a database of inflight events and engine shut downs. Since long range commercial twins were relatively new to the market, the FAA needed a database to draw upon in figuring out the regulatory details of what would become ETOPS flying. After the Air Canada Flight 143 incident (the "Gimli Glider) where fuel starvation resulted in a skillful emergency landing on an old Canadian military air strip, some thought it a set back for what Dick Taylor had been pushing for with the Boeing 767. However, in a speech to the Royal Aeronautical Society in London in late 1983, he argued that fuel starvation would have shut down all the engines regardless of whether you have two, three, or four engines. 

N767BA, the Boeing 767 prototype
(Seattle Municipal Archives via Wikipedia)

In 1980 three- and four-engined aircraft handled all the long range routes, particularly those that were overwater. There was a joke that stated "The reason I fly four-engined aircraft across the ocean is because there are no five-engined aircraft." But modern technology and computerized systems brought to the Boeing 767 a level of redundancy, safety, and efficiency not seen in any prior commercial aircraft. And it wasn't just the reliability of the engines, the various systems of the 767 facilitated the development of ETOPS- Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards- the ability of a twin engine jetliner to exceed the old 60-minute rule.

*I should point out at this point that before the 767, some Airbus A300 operators were flying overwater routes beyond the FAA's 60-minute rule under ICAO regulations, but that's beyond the scope of this article and I'll be touching upon the A300 in a future article on ETOPS history. 

For two years Boeing collected reams of data on the first 767 operations, compiling information on every shutdown and failure of any system including the engines in the first two years of commercial airline services. This was supplemented by the FAA/ICAO database that was started in 1982. In April 1984 El Al Israel Airlines became the first airline to operate the 767 on trans-Atlantic services between Montreal and Tel Aviv, but the aircraft's routing complied with the 60-minute rule. Not long after, El Al, Air Canada, and Trans World Airlines (TWA) received exemptions to operate no more than 75 minutes from a suitable diversion airport. This would open up some trans-Atlantic routes and Caribbean routes to the 767. In fact, Air Canada was the first to crack the 60-minute barrier having earned its 75-minute exemption in late 1983. By this point Lyn Helms was no longer the FAA Administrator, the post now assumed by Donald Engen who was more open minded to extended twin overwater flights. (Engen would later become the head of the National Air & Space Museum) Interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, one of the biggest opponents of ETOPS at the time was McDonnell Douglas, who saw the future of the DC-10 line threatened by the 767. 

In June 1984 Boeing showcased the new 767-200ER's long legs with a 7,500 mile delivery flight from Washington Dulles to Addis Adaba, Ethiopia to bring the 767 to Ethiopian Airlines. The flight required a special one-time FAA waiver to take place. In October 1984 Air Canada took delivery of the first ETOPS-qualified 767-200ER which was permitted to go 75 minutes from a suitable diversion airport. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association, the US-based pilots' union Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and the FAA made several recommendations to Boeing that resulted in the 767-200ER having a fourth electrical generator independently powered by a hydraulic motor, additional fire suppression features and equipment for cooling of the CRT displays in the cockpit.

By 1985 Dick Taylor at Boeing was lobbying the FAA hard for extension of the 75-minute rule to 120 minutes which would open up a large number of trans-Atlantic routes to the 767. Already several airlines led by TWA had petitioned the FAA for an ETOPS extension to 120 minutes but before the FAA would grant the extension, Boeing had to show "statistical maturity" by equipping a number of 767s with special data gathering equipment to show unparalleled standards of inflight reliability and the Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines had to log 250,000 consecutive flight hours on passenger flights with a very low rate of shutdown.

Trans World Airlines made the first 120-minute ETOPS flight in 1985
(Jon Proctor Collection via Wikipedia)

On 1 February 1985, TWA Flight 810 departed Boston for Paris on the first revenue passenger flight in history under the 120-minute ETOPS rule. The new ETOPS rule shortened the flight distance and it would replace a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar that normally served the route. Before Flight 810 departed, sixteen TWA pilots went through specialized ETOPS training on international requirements, intensive time in a simulator and landing procedures for the airport at Sondrestromfjord in Greenland, the designated 120-minute diversion airport. Eleven observers from the FAA were aboard TWA 810 and the fuel burn was found to be 7,000 lbs an hour less than that of the L-1011 Tristar on the same route. TWA was so convinced of the efficiency of the 767 with the 120-minute ETOPS rule that it spent $2.6 million per aircraft retrofitting all of its 767-200s for 120-minute ETOPS compliance.

But Boeing and Dick Taylor didn't stop there. The existing 120-minute ETOPS rule wasn't enough to get the 767 to Hawaii from California. But Boeing continued to compile failure and shutdown data on the 767 on the trans-Atlantic route to prove the the FAA that it was possible to safely operate the 767 to Hawaii from the US mainland. In 1989, the FAA approved the ETOPS extension to 180 minutes which opened up Hawaii to the 767, as the halfway point between Hawaii and the US mainland is approximately 150 minutes' flying time. But to gain the 180-minute extension, a particular aircraft and engine combination had to show 12 consecutive months of 120-minute ETOPS flights and meet stringent engine failure rates. The first 180-minutes ETOPS flights were made by American Airlines on the DFW-Honolulu routing starting in 1989. By 1993 the entire 767 family, both the -200 and the -300, as well as the possible engine options of GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce, gained full 180-minute ETOPS extensions.

The first commercial 180-minute ETOPS flights were made by American 767-300ERs DFW-HNL
(Aero Icarus Collection via Wikipedia)

By 1991 the number of passengers crossing the Atlantic on 767s exceeded the number of passengers crossing on three- and four-engined aircraft for the first time in history. By 2000, over 50% of all trans-Atlantic crossings were being made by the 767 family of aircraft. By that time, all brand new 767s rolling out at Boeing's factory in Everett were certified for 180 minutes ETOPS extensions.

It will be the legacy of the Boeing 767 to show that any place in the world could be crossed safely and efficiently with only two engines and it set the stage for the arrival of the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 family of aircraft that routinely fly routes today that were once the exclusive domain of multi-engined aircraft like the Boeing 747, A340, DC-10/MD-11 and L-1011 Tristar.

Source: Boeing 757 and 767 (Crowood Aviation Series) by Thomas Becher. The Crowood Press, 1999, p145-155.

The Four-Course Radio Range: Birth of the Modern Federal Airway System

This DC-6 captain uses headphones for navigation as well as communication

In the early 1920s, flying long distances was, for the most part, a fair weather enterprise. Even though airway beacon lights were being established for night flying across the United States, you still needed good visibility to fly at night. The explosive growth of the radio industry during this time frame facilitated the development of radio navigation. The origins of the four-course radio range lay just before the First World War, when engineers at the German electronics firm Lorentz proposed using radio signals in an overlapping pattern- one station broadcast the Morse code for A which was dot-dash or beep-beeeeeee and the other station broadcast the Morse code for N (since it was the inverse of A) which was dash-dot or beeeeeeee-beep. If you were in the overlap area, the broadcast of the A and the broadcast of the N would sound like a steady tone and then, depending upon how far left or right you were of the overlap, you heard a stronger A or a stronger N. If you were completely in the broadcast area of one or the the other, then you only heard the A or the N. The overlap area defined a straight line course either away or towards the broadcast station. This way, radio beams could define navigational courses. A variation of this system was used by German zeppelins for navigation during their bombing missions against London during the First World War. With an environment of extreme fiscal austerity in Germany during the war, continued development of the Lorentz radio range system moved to the United States. 

Diagram showing a Four-Course Radio Range

On 1 July 1925, the US Post Office inaugurated the first regular night air mail service which connected Newark, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois. Beacon lights marked out the route between the two metropolitan areas, but it was quite obvious that what was needed was a system that operated day and night regardless of visibility conditions. Considering that air mail flights and the developing airline industry rarely flew over 10,000 feet, it didn't take much cloud cover make the airway beacons as well as daytime visual navigation useless. Despite the obvious benefits to the US Post Office and the movement of air mail, it was the US Army that took the lead, partnering with the National Bureau of Standards to develop the Lorentz system further. A four-course layout was used and utilized well-known technology already used by the radio broadcast industry. There were four quadrants, each opposing quadrant broadcasting a Morse code A or N, this way the there were four overlap regions and these four overlap regions defined the four courses. As long as a pilot heard a steady tone, he was on course flying within one of the overlap areas. The only equipment aircraft needed was a receiver and the pilot would tune into each successive station and listen for the tones from the ground station. A four-course radio range (or AN range) had a third identifier which was the station's call sign which was transmitted every 24 seconds as a verification you were using the right AN range station. The station's call sign was a three-letter code that was typically that of the nearest airport- like "DEN" for the AN range station in Denver. Every 15 minutes the broadcast of the A or N was interrupted for a voice weather report for the area. Special weather bulletins would interrupt the AN broadcast as needed. Three different terms are interchangeably used to refer to this radio navigation system- four-course radio range, AN range, or LFR, for low-frequency range. I'll be using primarily AN range in this article. 

Typical layout of an AN radio range station

Ground stations would be built at certain intervals to mark out airways. The first AN range stations had four antennas linked by wires to a central antenna and "radio shack". As the technology and transmitting requirements increased, the four antennas were towers of their own with the central tower responsible for the special broadcasts. The development and testing of the AN range system was completed in February 1928 with a demonstration of radio navigation flight from Newark/New York to Cleveland, Ohio, using three AN range ground stations- one in New Brunswick, New Jersey, one in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and the third one in Cleveland, Ohio. The Bellefonte AN range station was transferred from the National Bureau of Standards to the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce (this branch ultimately years later would be come the FAA) with the other two stations soon to follow. Revenue flights on the Newark/New York to Cleveland airway by AN radio range commenced in November 1928. Because of the budget constraints of the day, airway beacon lights were still being installed as they were considerably cheaper than AN range ground stations. It wasn't until 1933 that the construction and activation of AN range ground stations took precedence over the airway beacon lights. Despite the Depression-era fiscal austerity, enough AN range stations were built to permit radio navigation flight as far west as Omaha, Nebraska, just in the first year of the AN range system operation. Chicago and Boston were added by 1930 and that same year, an AN range station was built in Key West, Florida, to allow radio navigation to Havana, Cuba. By 1931, the pace of AN range station construction reached a point where it was possible to fly from New York to San Francisco by radio navigation only. At the outbreak of the Second World War, there were 90 AN range stations in the United States that marked out over 18,000 miles of airways. 

Marker beacons were also added to increase navigational accuracy along any of the four courses of a given AN range station. In order to have some semblance of order and a reasonably navigable airway, some AN range stations had their four courses deviate from exactly 90 degrees to each other. Looking at the map above, you might even make out the roots of the current airways on modern aeronautical charts. Each station operated in the low to medium frequency range from 200 kHz to 410 kHz, but the US military operated some of its own AN range stations that went up as high as 536 kHz. Since the technology used in the aircraft receiver and in the broadcast equipment in the AN range stations was based on that used in consumer radio sets and the radio broadcast industry, it was relatively inexpensive and adaptation by the aviation interests in the United States was rapid.

The AN range stations of the United States in 1950- you can see the origins of the current federal airway system
(click for larger image)

Despite the relative low costs and simplicity of the AN range system for airways navigation, there were several issues that were constant challenges to air crews. The first one was the layout of the AN range broadcast area- there were only four possible courses since there were only four overlap areas where a pilot could hear a steady tone instead of the A or the N. As can be seen from the map of the United States AN stations in 1950 above, there was some deviation from 90 degrees, but the practical limit was that the courses had to be separated by more than 20 degrees or the overlap area was simply too big to be of any navigational use. The second draw back was that there was no way of determining position location with the AN range system except if you were directly above the AN station in its "cone of silence". There were a series of complex procedures that had to be learned to intercept an on-course beam and to identify that beam- it involved a series of maneuvers while listening to the relative strengths of both the A and N signals. Changes in the signal strength while performing a series of maneuvers determined which quadrant you were in as well as which on-course beam you intercepted. Now imagine having to do this in a very noisy prop liner flight deck in inclement weather!

Typical AN range on a chart, this is in the Mojave Desert SW of Las Vegas

The primary drawback of the AN range system was a matter of physics. The longer radio wavelengths used were prone to static interference from thunderstorms and heavy precipitation and at night, (what's called "night effect") propagation of the radio signals went farther due to the ionosphere which meant it was possible for two AN stations normal out of range of each other to interfere with each other's signal at night. This distance deviation can range anywhere from 30 to 60 miles and was more pronounced on AN range frequencies above 350 kHz. The ground conductivity around the AN station could also affect the signals and any location where there was an abrupt transition from land to water could experience what's called "shore effect" where the radio waves get bent off course. This was most pronounced on on-course beams that ran parallel to a nearby shoreline. Terrain also had a deleterious effect on AN signals, particularly in mountainous areas. The difference in ground conductivity of valleys versus mountains on each side of a valley could create false beams.

Technical improvements to the transmitting antennas made during the late 1930s and into the Second World War improved signal integrity to some degree, but the signals were still a longer wavelength prone to interference by natural sources- but more importantly, a better AN signal still left users with the limitations of a four-course layout. The AN range system was trickier for landing and was nowhere near the level of precision needed for a true low-visibility approach into an airport. The four-course layout meant that not every airport let alone their runways were aligned along one of the on-course beams and at a distance of 30 miles from the AN range station, the on-course beam was 2 miles wide. "Instrument landings" to use the term loosely were still possible at select airports, but not widespread enough to be of significant utility to the growing number of users in the federal airway system of the day. A variety of programs started in the late 1930s focused on using shorter radio wavelengths as they were much less prone to natural interference and were not limited to just a four course layout. That radio wavelength today we know as VHF- RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, led the development of VHF transmitting equipment for navigational use. Because a VHF station wasn't limited to just four courses like the AN range, it was called VHF Omnirange, or VOR. The first test VOR installation went live in 1940 at Weir-Cook Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana (today's Indianapolis International Airport). The other VHF navigational initiative that grew out the work to find something better than the AN range system was the ILS, instrument landing system- the development of VOR navigation and ILS will be the subject of a future blog article and is beyond the scope of this feature.

Following the Second World War, more VOR stations were established, displacing many of the AN range stations. Quite a few AN range stations were converted to NDB stations- the central tower was all that was needed, so the four outer AN towers were removed. But the simplicity and low cost of AN range stations meant that they persisted well into the 1970s and early 1980s. The last American AN range station was in Alaska and one source on a radio hobbyists' forum indicated that this occurred around 1971 with the the last AN range station in Canada located in British Columbia decommissioning in the early 1980s. One example of an AN range station converted to an NDB was the Spokane, Washington, AN range station. In 1936 it operated at Felts Field at 365 kHz which was Spokane's original commercial airport until replaced by the former Geiger AFB in 1946. In the early 1950s the AN range station was moved to the town of Marshall, southwest of Spokane, to better serve the new airport at Geiger Field (now Spokane International Airport) but it kept the same frequency at 365 kHz. It was one of the AN range stations that was converted to an NDB station when the AN ranges were replaced by VOR stations. In the late 1980s the Marshall NDB, still at 365 kHz, was moved back to Felts Field which had become a general aviation airport. In 2008, the NDB there was moved to Deer Park Airport north of the city, still operating at 365 kHz to this day. That would mean that next year, there has been a radio navigation aid in the Spokane area of one form or another operating at 365 kHz for ninety years!

Sources: Electronics in the Evolution of Flight by Albert Helfrick. Texas A&M University Press, 2004, pp 36-42, 54-57. "Flying the Beam: LF/MF Four-Course Radio Ranges" by Richard Harris, 2013, 2014 at http://home.iwichita.com/rh1/hold/av/stories/avionics/radiorange.htm. "Aviation Low-Frequency Radio Ranges" at ed-thelen.org. Photos: Wikipedia, FAA, Houston Municipal Airport Museum at 1940airterminal.org.

Two's Company and Three's A Crowd: The Boeing 737-200 Flight Crew Controversy

In the late 1950s and early 1960s propliners still served a lot of the shorter routes in the US domestic market as jets were becoming the fashionable on the longer routes where the time savings of the jets over propliners was most apparent. However, the travelling public was irreversibly enamored with jet aircraft for travel and soon shorter domestic routes would be singing with jet noise- the first designs for the medium-range domestic routes, the Convair 880 and the Boeing 720, were too large and uneconomical to operate on short-range routes. Boeing responded with the 727 which would prove to be one of its outstanding commercial successes, but airlines were looking for an even smaller jet. By the early 1960s the Douglas DC-9, BAC 1-11, and the Sud-Aviation Caravelle were established in the market and Boeing's smallest offering, the 727-100, was too big for most short-range routes. When long-time Boeing customer American Airlines turned to Great Britain for the BAC 1-11 for a short-range jet to complement its 727 services, the engineers at Renton got yet another kick in the pants to produce an offering to compete with the twin-jets. 

With the first generation of twin-jets disproving the skeptics that thought short-range routes would too uneconomical for jets, Boeing designers aimed for a small twin jet that was more flexible than the existing competition that could not only fly into smaller communities and smaller airports, but would blend seamlessly with larger jet operations at major airports. Key in making this possible was the decision by 737 lead engineer John Steiner to make the new 737 the same cross-section as the 707 and the 727. This would give the 737 the lead in comfort by offering 3-3 seating whereas the competition could only offer 3-2 seating. For the first time, big jet comfort was possible on shorter sectors. 

A United Boeing 737-200 in its delivery livery, the Mainliner scheme.

But the design decision had an unforeseen consequence that would result in considerable controversy between the pilots, the airlines, and the FAA who would be certifying the aircraft. At the time, the FAA had imposed a limit on the size of aircraft that could be operated by a two-man flight crew- it was set at 80,000 pounds maximum takeoff weight (MTOW). This limit dictated the size of the first DC-9s and as the BAC 1-11s were below the limit, Braniff and American who had ordered One-Elevens operated them with two-man crews. Aircraft over the 80,000 pound limit required three crew in the cockpit. Boeing's original 737 proposals weighed in at 79,000 pounds, but potential customers found the design too small. Eastern and United in particular wanted a larger aircraft. Even despite a rule change by the FAA raising the two-man crew limit to 90,000 pounds, the revised 737 design needed a three-man crew as it tipped the scales at 93,000 pounds. 

In April 1965 the FAA announced that it was abolishing the weight limit criteria and from then on, aircraft would be certified for two-crew operation on an individual basis. This followed two years of deliberation and consultations with the pilots' unions, airline managers, airframe manufacturers and human factors studies. 

Of the four major airlines in the US at the time ("The Big Four"), three had already made their choices in the short-range jet category. Eastern and TWA ordered the DC-9 and American ordered the BAC 1-11. That left United as the only major interested in the 737. Of the early orders for the 737, only United's order was sizable (40 -200s ordered in 1965). Lufthansa also had a significant order, but they weren't encumbered by the FAA-mandated weight restrictions on two-man crew operations. However, United's managers found the 737 to have a political disadvantage since the pilots' unions at the time felt that as the largest of the twin jets available, it should be operated with a crew of three. While expensive for the airlines in terms of labor costs, the 737 design from the outset was intended for a two-man crew. Only a small jumpseat was available on the flight deck.

Now the third crew issue had already been visited previously before the introduction of aircraft like the 737. In the late 1950s the Lockheed Electra sparked considerable debate among its customer airlines. However, in each of the three cases, the issue was deferred- Eastern's dispute revolved around whether or not the third crew should be a pilot or a flight engineer. In the cases involving National and Western, ALPA used the two-crew issue as a test case to set a precedent (even though the Electra was never intended to be used by two pilots). National put the issue in arbitration that deferred the issue. Western's management was more inflexible and for four months a pilots' strike nearly grounded Western until it was agreed by both parties to defer the issue. So from a precedent standpoint, the impending dispute over the 737 flight deck had no prior rulings or standards to build upon for either side involved. 

In late 1965 Boeing showed a mockup of the 737 cockpit to representatives from United's ALPA union, the FAA, and airline managers. While the FAA felt that the mockup was inconclusive from a certification standpoint, the pilots' union disapproved of the two-man cockpit. A year later, a working mockup that was "functional" and more detailed to test workloads was presented and again the United pilots balked at the layout for two-crew. Not long afterward, ALPA's leadership made it the union's official recommendation that the 737 be operated with a three-man crew at all times. During this same time, the pilots' contract at United was up for negotiation and the 737 crew issue became a major stumbling block in the discussions for a new contract. To further complicate the picture, the FAA at the same time also tentatively approved two-man operation of the 737 pending the start of flight testing in 1967. 

By 1967 the dispute at United still had not been settled and a presidential mediation board was convened to help in reaching a compromise between ALPA and United's management. That summer the board failed in reconciling both sides and a strike vote taken showed 92% of United's pilots in favor of striking if the 737 couldn't be operated by a three-man crew. As an effort to reach out for a compromise, ALPA proposed to the FAA that the 737 as well as the BAC 1-11 and DC-9 be operated with a three-man crew. This proposal provoked the ire of the airlines that already had the One-Eleven and the DC-9 in service and the proposal was quietly shelved with the assent of ALPA members at those other airlines. By this point the dispute was discouraging further US sales of the 737 and indirectly helped Douglas with it's DC-9 which now offered increased capacity versions to regional airlines since it had already set the precedent for two crew operations with the first DC-9 Series 10 models. 

N9013U "Mainliner City of Charlotte"

The 737 made its maiden flight in April 1967 and over the Thanksgiving holiday week of that year, the FAA decided to run a series of tests to put the crew number issue to rest. One of the 737s was borrowed from Boeing and two-crew operations would be tested in the busy Boston-New York-Washington corridor. One pilot was from Boeing, the other pilot from the FAA. Two round-trips were made each day that week in both day and night conditions, both VFR and IFR weather conditions, as well as operations below minimum landing conditions, diversion operations, simulated instrument failures and even simulated crew incapacitation (could one pilot fly the 737 to safety). As a result of these tests, the FAA issued the following statement:

"The far-reaching evaluation of the Boeing 737 was started in September 1965, with the evaluation of the cockpit mock-up. Continuous evaluations over the past two years included regular operations of the aircraft in a high-density air traffic environment to determine workload, complexity, and safety of operations in a fail-safe concept. These flights were part of a very extensive flight-testing programme accomplished by the FAA and Boeing personnel. The technical findings coming out of these evaluations are that the aircraft can be safely flown with a minimum of two pilots."

Certification by the FAA of both the 737-100 and 737-200 followed in December 1967 for full airline operations. 

The third flight deck crew sat on the jumpseat on United 737-200s

Despite the issue being settled by the FAA, several airline pilot unions continued the crew issue as a bargaining chip in labor negotiations with airline management. Anxious to avert a strike in 1967, United reached an agreement with ALPA as part of a broader contract agreement to crew the 737-200 with a crew of three. Western Airlines, Frontier Airlines, and Wien Air Alaska were the only other US airlines bound by contract agreements with the pilots' union to use three crew in the flight deck. Frontier and Wien switched to a two-crew flight deck in 1976 and 1979 respectively. It wasn't until 1981 (ostensibly due to the impending introduction of the 737-300) that United finally went to a two-crew operation on the 737-200. At United, the third crewman sat in the jumpseat which is sited immediately in front of the cockpit door. Duties of the third crewman included preflight, performing the checklists, performance calculations (weight, balance, takeoff and landing distances, etc.) and company communications. All the relevant controls such as radio, electrical, hydraulic and other functions necessary were reachable from the jumpseat. Once United reverted to a two-crew flight deck in 1981, no modifications were necessary to the -200 cockpits.

Source: Boeing 737 (Crowood Aviation Series) by Malcolm L. Hill. Crowood Publishing, 2002, pp 23-31. Photos: Bob Garrard Collection/Flickr, JP Santiago

The ever-unorthodox Herb Kelleher
(Southwest Airlines)

In 1986, Southwest Airlines was only the 14th largest airline in the United States and had only 63 aircraft in its fleet. In fact, in terms of passengers carried, Southwest was less than one-tenth the size of United Airlines. But from the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, Southwest had not only grown four-fold but had remained consistently profitable during the rocky early years of deregulation. But few Americans at the time had heart of Southwest Airlines as it was still for the most part operating in Texas and the adjacent states. Despite its relative obscurity, though, the business world from academia to other industries took a close look at Southwest trying to divine the secret to its success. Perhaps Robert Crandall, the iconic head of American Airlines, Southwest's main competition in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, said it best when he said "That place runs on Herb Kelleher's bullshit."

The compromise that left Southwest at Dallas Love Field, the Wright Amendment, only applied to Southwest's services from Dallas and limited those services to the adjacent states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. But there were no such restrictions on Southwest's other services from other cities in its network and when Kelleher ended up running Southwest full time in 1981, he was ready to break out and head west as well as east.

The only problem was that in the wake of the 1981 PATCO strike, the lack of replacement air traffic controllers led to the imposition of slot controls at the major airports in California that Kelleher wanted to start serving. Until staffing levels were restored, traffic would be restricted at these key airports but that a certain portion of the slots created were to be assigned to new entrants. Kelleher's legal background helped him as he read up on the minutiae of the slot assignment rules. Since Southwest had been operating since 1971, it was hardly a new entrant, but the airline did have a subsidiary set up called Midway Southwest that dated back to the airline's earlier days. Midway Southwest was originally set up to start services to Chicago Midway, but the plans back in the airline's nascent days never got off the ground.

So Kelleher applied for the new entrant slots as Midway Southwest, to his surprise got them from the FAA, and then traded them to Southwest Airlines. Someone higher up in the FAA figured out Kelleher's ruse and struck down the slot award- slots, said the FAA, could only be traded by operating airlines. Ever resourceful and not taking no for an answer, Kelleher then sold Midway Southwest to a charter company that owned a single Learjet. The charter company then traded the slots to Southwest and since the rules as written by the FAA for new entrant slot awards didn't specify charter vs. scheduled let alone a minimum fleet size, the FAA was unable to nullify the slot award a second time. Southwest got its slots to Los Angeles International Airport and prepared to inaugurate services to LAX via Phoenix, Arizona.

All was good and well until the FAA Administrator, J. Lynn Helms found out about Kelleher's legal maneuverings to get access to LAX. Helms summoned him to Washington immediately to explain himself. Helms berated Kelleher for making a mockery of the system by using loopholes in the rules to gain slots to LAX. After his tirade, Helms smiled and confessed that he enjoyed Kelleher's legal maneuvers to win the slots. The story as it's been told is that Helms then ordered Kelleher to leave his office and act as if he'd had his heart ripped out.

So along with services to California, Southwest added Las Vegas, Kansas City, and St. Louis (all now key cities in Southwest's network) and in 1985 the airline opened its services east of the Mississippi River to Chicago Midway. And the rest, they say, is history!

Source: Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos by Thomas Petzinger, Jr. Three Rivers Press, 1996, p320-321.

With the expansion in the numbers of jet-powered military aircraft in the USAF as well as the other branches of the military in the 1950s, concerns were raised about the flow control of high-performance jet aircraft with slower civilian piston traffic in the airways system. The Strategic Air Command alone in 1955 operated over a thousand jet aircraft. The USAF's Airways & Air Communications Service, in charge of all Air Force navigation and communications facilities, expressed concern that without the development of new control procedures, airways and navaids, it would be like inadequate highways being paired with modern automobiles.

As the Civil Aeronautics Administration (the FAA's predecessor) had no jet aircraft capable of performing the flight check role, the task was assigned the USAF AACS. In what became known as the High Altitude Project, both CAA and USAF navaids and procedures were to be evaluated using Boeing B-47 Stratojets. The objectives of the project were to evaluate ATC procedures, determine the capabilities of navaids at high speeds between 20,000 to 40,000 feet and develop new high altitude control procedures. The Douglas C-47s and C-54s then operated by the CAA would conduct the low altitude flight checks as they had been doing since the Second World War.

Between 1955 and 1962 B-47s based at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, were fitted out with the necessary flight check equipment for the High Altitude Project. In 1963, Lockheed C-140 Jetstars would replace the Stratojets in the flight check role.

Two sets of navigational charts resulted from the High Altitude Project, an updated set of low-altitude charts and procedures for altitudes up to 18,000 feet and a jet navigation set of charts and procedures for altitudes from 18,000 feet to 40,000 feet. In addition, a new set of airfield approach plates suitable for jet aircraft were developed.

Source: Boeing's B-47 Stratojet by Alwyn T. Lloyd. Speciality Press, 2005, p182-183

The Grob G115 two seat general aviation aircraft is a development of Grob's G110 and G112 light training aircraft and first flew on 15 November 1985. Subsequent improvements in the G115 led to the G115E to become the first aircraft made from glass-fiber reinforced plastics to be certificated by the FAA.

In 1998 the G115 was selected as the Tutor for elementary flight training for the RAF to replace the Chipmunk T.10 and the Bulldog T.1. With 92 aircraft stationed at 14 airfields, the Grob Tutor T.1 is the second most numerous type in RAF service after the Panavia Tornado GR.4 and is also the most widely dispersed single type in Royal Air Force service.

Source: Air International, April 2009. "Grob Tutor: Aircraft of the RAF Part 12" by Jim Winchester, p52.

One of the more unusual operators of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor was the Federal Aviation Administration. From June to December of 1970, the USAF loaned an F-102 to the FAA who operated it with the registration number N300. It was assigned to provide data that would be used to develop takeoff airworthiness standards for the planned American SST as well as US certification of the Concorde. Equipped with a tail skid to limit takeoff rotation to angles and runway lengths more appropriate to the supersonic transports, N300 was flown by FAA pilot Robert LeSuer from Edwards AFB.

The data collected by N300 would be used to define the operating rules for Concorde operations in the United States. Upon completion of its program, the aircraft was retired to Davis-Monthan AFB's boneyard.

Source: Warpaint Series No. 64: Convair F-102 Delta Dagger by Terry Panopalis. Warpaint Books, p39.